Sorry for the later blog post, this week we worked on our breaststroke. Breaststroke is by far one of the most difficult strokes to learn but we have been making incredible strides towards our perfect breaststroke. We also worked a little on our dives and I am speechless, this group has some of the most amazing dives I have ever seen. Keep up the great work.

Get excited, tomorrow is posters and cheers, can’t wait to see all your creative poster in support of the Kigoos. For those of you wondering what the timeline is for tomorrow we will be doing a shorter practice followed by some time to make posters, then it’s pizza time, before we all get to learn the cheers we will be doing on Saturday.

Saturday is the Ice breaker and I am so excited to see our hard work reflected in our times. Some important things to remember: there is no required warm ups for JD’s but feel free to join the junior if you feel it would be beneficial to you, if you are not doing warm up which is more than okay, try to arrive around half an hour before the races are scheduled to start so that you can join in with cheers. Please come see me when you arrive so I can take a little attendance. Also, please let me know when you leave although the JD’s are not on a specific relay but they are usually used in case someone is missing so it would be super important to know if you would be able to be a backup. Before and after your race make sure you come talk to me so that I can give you a few things to focus on during your race. If you are wondering where I will be, I will be at the coach’s table by the shed in the far corner of the pool, or I will be talking to swimmers in marshaling.

I tried to cover all the important things in this blog post but if you have anymore questions about this Saturday or anything else please feel free to contact me anytime and I will do my best to answer in a timely and efficient manner.

May 30th, 2019 | Posted by kigooswm in Coaches Corner - (Comments Off on Head Coach and Intermediate Red Update from Coach Emmy)

Hi Kigoos!

I hope everyone had a fun (but wet) time at the
mock meet last Saturday! I was happy to see so many new swimmers getting a
taste of what a real swim meet looks like.

The season is now well underway with our home
meet, the Ice Breaker quickly approaching this weekend! The coaches are all
looking forward to seeing the swimmers debut the skills we have been working
hard on over the last month. As we are now in swim meet mode, here are some
reminders:

-It is very important to always check the
validation list to ensure that your child is entered in the correct events as
these events cannot be corrected after the deadline. Feel free to email your
child’s group coach (or me) if you have any questions about meet events.

-Please let the coaches know ahead of time if
your child cannot participate in relays. The coaches work very hard to ensure
almost everyone gets to participate in a relay and it is always disappointing
to have to scratch relay teams due to swimmers leaving early

The Intermediate Red’s have now spent some time
working on technique for each stroke. Our primary goals continue to be
practicing consciously with the objective of each set in mind, in addition to
pushing off every wall with a tight streamline and gliding before initiating
the dolphin kick. As a group we spend a lot of time working on kick. During our
dolphin kick practice, we talk about pushing the water hard in both directions,
and the importance of the up kick. We practice using our hips and pulling the
water up, feeling the pressure of the water on the back of our feet. It is easy
to have a strong down kick, but the fastest dolphin kickers, have an equally
strong up kick, which we will continue working to achieve. Here is a video
demonstrating just how fast dolphin kick can be!

This week we have been working on starts and my
favourite stroke to teach- butterfly. Butterfly often gets a bad reputation for
being the hardest stroke, but with the right body position and timing it can be
fun and even relaxing! In our butterfly practice we have been working on
pressing the chest down to allow the hips to rise, and entering with the arms
straight, reaching behind the head. In our starts, we are working on looking
forward with the head and using arms to help launch the body off the blocks. Here is Caleb
Dressel who is known as currently having one of the best starts in swimming.
Pay close attention to how he uses his arms. His start is so powerful he almost
always begins the race with a lead.

Finally, I would to congratulate Intermediate
Red’s most recent swimmers of the week, Zack K, and Aden L. Zack demonstrates
leadership through his consist and excellent completion of activation. As the
group’s activation master, Zack leads by example and helps his teammates stay
on track. Zack is known to be one of the hardest workers in the group, but has
shown considerable progress in his ability to apply feedback, which can only
lead to improvement. Aden is a leader to the group by regularly being the first
person to start warmup. Aden consistently demonstrates an understanding of the
sets goals, and pushes himself to reach them, while encouraging those around
him to do the same. As a result of his drive to improve, Aden swims
purposefully and asks thoughtful questions. Way to go boys!

Another awesome week done at the pool working on our breaststroke and lots of speed play work. We have been focussing a lot on our body position – trying to maintain the streamlined position for as long as we can per stroke. We have also been working on the power phase trying to make sure we are pulling as much water as we can and using our legs to our best advantage. Great job this week!

To those of you who showed up to the Mock Meet on Saturday – thank you for being so supportive of the younger swimmers and showing the rest of Kigoos that Seniors are still super involved with the club! You had some awesome races and I hope you feel more prepared for Icebreaker because of it (secret word: hamburger helper). For those of you who didn’t show up and didn’t tell me a valid reason… be ready for a hard practice next time you show up.

This week is very important to be coming to practice. We will be reviewing technique of all the strokes (just like with our stations last night) and building up race pace with added race tactics. On Friday we have posters and cheers, be sure to come with Kigoos clothing on and be ready to make some awesome posters to put up around the pool!

Be sure to double check the validation list for Icebreaker ASAP and I’ll see you on the pool deck!

May 27th, 2019 | Posted by kigooswm in Coaches Corner - (Comments Off on Senior White Update from Coach Erika)

Hey Senior Whites,

We’ve had great attendance this past week! Keep coming to as many practices as possible. Last week we worked on fly technique, making sure to push your chest down and kick from your hips instead of knees. This week we’ll be reviewing all the strokes, and working on IM turns.

Icebreaker is coming up this weekend and I’m very excited that almost everyone is going. In preparation for the meet we are having a poster and cheers night on Friday. Cheers will be at 5:45, I expect everyone to be in attendance. We will be making poster at 6:30, and practice is from 7:15-8:30. There will be pizza for dinner so make sure to preorder, and bring a plate.

As we get further into the season there are swim meets almost every weekend. I strongly encourage you to attend all, if not as many as possible. Swim meets are a great way to practice and gain confidence in the pool!

Hope everyone is having an amazing May long weekend! We have a few events coming up—the Mock Meet and the Icebreaker Meet. I would highly encourage parents to sign your swimmers up for both events so that both you and your kids can gain more experience with swim meets and learn how they are run.

This week, we started learning backstroke and dives. I am so impressed with how fast you guys are learning all of these new skills and techniques. However, there is still a lot to learn so make sure you come to as many practices as you can!

The Icebreaker Meet is only a few weeks away so I hope to see our attendance stay consistent. Attendance for afternoon practices have been awesome but I would really like to see more swimmers at morning practices. Keep up the good work and keep coming to practices ready to learn!

The past couple weeks we have worked on freestyle breathing, keeping our hips up in backstroke and whipkick. I am very impressed with the improvements I am seeing from everyone in the group! Next week we will continue to focus on backstroke and breaststroke and spend more time on dives and flip turns.

So far this season, JD red attendance has been really consistent, with almost our entire group coming to each practice so keep up the good work! I would like to encourage everyone to sign up for the Mock Meet that is coming up this Saturday as it is a great way to introduce swim meets, especially to newer swimmers.

We are less than two weeks away from Icebreaker so I am hoping to continue to see the great attendance we’ve been having over the next couple of weeks! Keep up the energy and positive attitude!

May 20th, 2019 | Posted by kigooswm in Coaches Corner - (Comments Off on JD Turquoise Update from Coach Nikol)

JD Turquoise

Hi parents and swimmers. I hope your long weekend is going great. I would like to encourage all parents to sign their children up for the mock meet as well as the Icebreaker. For the mock meet my suggestion would be sign up for 25’s and then for the icebreaker you simply have to sign your child up and I will be choosing their events.
This week the children worked very hard and have solidified some starts and finishes on their backs and fronts. We have worked a lot on freestyle and backstroke and it is incredible to see that in three weeks the children are already able to swim full stroke.

We have worked hard and will keep on working hard and I look forward to seeing everyone on the pool deck.
If there are any questions feel free to email me or come see me at the pool.

May 19th, 2019 | Posted by kigooswm in Coaches Corner - (Comments Off on Senior White Update from Coach Erika)

Hey Senior Whites,

This past week we went over proper breast stroke technique, lunging forward with every stroke, finishing your whip kicks, and only pulling to your chest. We also worked on touch turns, and I have seen a big improvement from our first week back! This week we will be going over fly technique. Similar to every other stroke we will be doing lots of drills to reinforce proper technique.

Over the next 2 weeks we have some fun events coming up. This Saturday is the mock meet. I expect to see all senior whites in attendance. It’s a great way to practice racing, and get an idea of what a swim meet is like. The icebreaker is coming up in 2 weeks, and I am very happy to see that almost all of you have signed up! If you haven’t, I strongly encourage you to sign up as it’s the first meet of the season, as well as our home meet.

We still had very low attendance this week. I understand that many of you have other activities, but please make it to as many practices as possible.